Fire Canseco as Independent League Manager

Better at selling books than hitting balls. (Credit: UPI)

Former MVP Jose Canseco will serve as player/manager for the Yuma Scorpions of the independent North American League, but he should be fired before he even plays/manages a game given his history of cheating, legal issues and lack of reliability.



As everyone knows, Canseco freely admits that he pioneered steroid use in baseball, used performance enhancers for years and alleged that he gave drugs to other players. He also has a long history of legal problems. In 1997 he was charged with hitting his wife. In 2006 he was successfully sued for $250,000 by another independent baseball team, the Yuma Armada. In 2008 he was charged with smuggling a male fertility drug from Mexico to the U.S., which may suggest that he continued using illegal performance-enhancing drugs well after he was out of the majors. He has also shown that he isn't reliable. In March he pulled a bait-and-switch when he attempted to have his twin brother, Ozzie, fill in for him at a celebrity boxing match. The fight promoter wasn't fooled, canceled the fight, and won't pay either Canseco.

Independent baseball is a different world in that most of the guys playing there either won't get a shot at the majors or had a shot and are in the twilight of their careers. That doesn't mean the games don't matter to them. Canseco has never been a manager and given his history, how can he be trusted to be a strong leader, mentor and decision-maker? Babe Ruth wanted desperately to manage after he was through playing, but he never got a chance. Supposedly he was told that since he couldn't manage himself, there was no way he could manage a team. The same issue haunts Canseco. 

If the Scorpions want Canseco there as a draw for fans, so be it. He has no business managing a baseball team and should be fired in that capacity right away.